"And I heard 'em say, Nothin's ever promised tomorrow, today,From the Chi, like Tim its the Hard-a-way,So this is In The Name of Love, like Robert say,Before you ask me, to go get a job today, Can I at least get a raise, on the minimum wage?And I know the government, administer AIDS,So I guess we just pray, like the minister say,Allahu Akbar, and throw 'em some hot cars,Things we see on the screen, is not ours,But these niggas from the hood, So these dreams not far,Where I'm from, the dope boys, Is, the rock stars,But they can't cop cars, Without seein', cop cars,

I guess they want us all behind bars...

I know it...

[chorus]

Uh, And I heard 'em say, Nothin's ever promised tomorrow, today,

(Ooooooooo)

And I heard 'em say, Nothin's ever promised tomorrow, today,

(Nothing's ever promised tomorrow, today...)

But we'll find a way,(And nothing lasts forever... But, be honest, babe... It helps, that it may be, the only way...)

They say people in your life, are seasons,And anything that happen, is for a reason,And niggas gun' clappin', and keep to squeezin',And Gran keep prayin', and keep believin',In Jesus, and one day, that ya see him,'Til they walk in his footsteps, and try to be him,The devil is alive, I feel him breathin',Claimin' money is the key, so keep on dreamin',And put them lottery tickets, just to tease us,My aunt Pam, can't put those cigarettes down,Now my lil' cousin smokin' them cigarettes now,His job trying to claim, that he too niggerish now,Is it 'cause his skin, blacker than licorice now?

I can't figure it out...

I'm stickin' it out...

[chorus]

Uh, And I heard 'em say, Nothin's ever promised tomorrow, today,

(Ooooooooo)

And I heard 'em say, Nothin's ever promised tomorrow, today,

(Nothing's ever promised tomorrow today...)

But we'll find a way,

(And nothing lasts forever... But, be honest, babe... It helps, that it may be, the only way...)

(With every worthless word... We get more far away... And nothing's ever promised tomorrow, today...And nothing lasts forever... But, be honest, babe... It helps, that it may be, the only way...)

- Kanye West f. Adam Levine of Maroon 5, "Heard 'Em Say"

(...)

Hurricane Katrina evacuees wait in line for food stamps at Camp Edwards in Bourne, Massachusetts September 12, 2005. On a party-line vote, a Republican-run House of Representatives committee voted to cut food stamps by $844 million on Friday, just hours after a new Agriculture Department report showed more Americans are struggling to put food on the table. (Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)

Yahoo! News

House panel votes $844 mln cut in food stamps

By Charles Abbott 26 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On a party-line vote, a Republican-run U.S. House of Representatives committee voted to cut food stamps by $844 million on Friday, just hours after a new government report showed more Americans are struggling to put food on the table.

About 300,000 Americans would lose benefits due to tighter eligibility rules for food stamps, the major U.S. antihunger program, under the House plan. The cuts would be part of $3.7 billion pared from Agriculture Department programs over five years as part of government-wide spending reductions.

Agriculture Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte defended the decision, saying only a sliver of food stamp spending was affected and, for the most part, the cuts would eliminate people not truly eligible.

"This is not a giveaway program that results in windfall profits," said North Carolina Democrat G.K. Butterfield in opposing the cuts. "That is not moral. That is not American."

Antihunger activists said hunger rates were up for the fifth year in a row, so the cuts were a mistake.

"It is hard to imagine any congressional action that is more detached from reality," said James Weill of the Food Research and Action Center.

"Cutting food stamps now is a scandal," said David Beckman of Bread for the World, pointing to losses from hurricanes.

Approved 25-20, the committee package now will become part of an omnibus budget-cutting bill.

The House plan would also cut U.S. crop supports by $1 billion, land stewardship by $760 million, research by $620 million and rural development by $446 million.

The Senate's budget reduction plan would not touch food stamps, but would cut $3 billion from other USDA programs.

On food stamps, the House committee agreed to require immigrants to wait seven years, instead of the current five, to apply for aid. That would affect an estimated 70,000 people.

It also would deny food stamps to people who automatically get food stamps because they receive help through other welfare programs but whose income is above food stamp levels. About 225,000 people fall in that category.

North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy complained that 40,000 children would lose free meals at school because of that provision.

"You have not even come clean that kids are going to lose school breakfast and school lunch under this," he said.

Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, said states unfairly "have taken the opportunity to expand food stamp eligibility" beyond what the federal government intended. Democrat John Barrow of Georgia said Goodlatte was punishing states for using welfare reform laws to respond to local needs.

A new Agriculture Department report found 38.2 million Americans "were food insecure" in 2004, an increase of nearly 2 million from the previous year. Tufts University food economist Parke Wilde food insecurity "now equals the worst levels" since recordkeeping began a decade ago.

USDA said 11.9 percent of households, "at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources."

Food stamps help poor Americans buy food. About 25 million people get food stamps monthly.

The USDA had an overall budget of about $85 billion in fiscal 2005. Food stamps and other nutrition programs for the poor accounted for about $51 billion, with the remainder going to crop subsidies for farmers, food aid to foreign countries, farmland conservation, meat plant inspections and other farm-related programs.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Courtesy of The Monk on the Couch: Devil's Waitin'

"Out on the corner, with cast-iron blood,Ten thousand or more, with hearts on the run,They say I might die, and I maybe cold,I may have no Jesus, I may have no soul,In prison I hear, there's time to be good,But the first thing you see, is the last thing you should,

Well I've seen the battle, and I've seen the war,And the life in here, is the life I've been told,Well I've seen the battle, and I've seen the war,And the life I have here, is the life I've been sold...

They say there's a passing, where all stand to judge,But the Devil's a-waiting, with Christ like a sonWhen the look comes your way, you best say was I,For the reasons you hold, give reasons to die,The calling's impatient, but the cause never won,But the last one to say it, may last through the flood,

Well I've seen the battle, and I've seen the war,And the life in here, is the life I've been sold,Well I've seen the battle, and I've seen the war,And the life I have here, is the life I've been told...

And born in the mirror, where life's just begun,And I've roamed from the reasons, and roamed to the gun,They say I'm the killer, and thy will be done,And the doors won't be open, when I finally become,

And I've seen the battle, and I've seen the war,And the life I have here, is the life I've been sold,Yeah I've seen the battle, and I've seen the war,And the life in here, is the life I've been told,

A man puffs on a marijuana joint at a rally in Toronto on September 10. REUTERS/Jorge Uzon

Yahoo! News

Pot not a major cancer risk: report

By Amy Norton Wed Oct 26,12:29 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although both marijuana and tobacco smoke are packed with cancer-causing chemicals, other qualities of marijuana seem to keep it from promoting lung cancer, according to a new report.

The difference rests in the often opposing actions of the nicotine in tobacco and the active ingredient, THC, in marijuana, says Dr. Robert Melamede of the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

He reviewed the scientific evidence supporting this contention in a recent issue of Harm Reduction Journal.

Whereas nicotine has several effects that promote lung and other types of cancer, THC acts in ways that counter the cancer-causing chemicals in marijuana smoke, Melamede explained in an interview with Reuters Health.

"THC turns down the carcinogenic potential," he said.

For example, lab research indicates that nicotine activates a body enzyme that converts certain chemicals in both tobacco and marijuana smoke into cancer-promoting form. In contrast, studies in mice suggest that THC blocks this enzyme activity.

Another key difference, Melamede said, is in the immune system effects of tobacco and marijuana. Smoke sends irritants into the respiratory system that trigger an immune-regulated inflammatory response, which involves the generation of potentially cell-damaging substances called free radicals. These particles are believed to contribute to a range of diseases, including cancer.

But cannabinoids -- both those found in marijuana and the versions found naturally in the body -- have been shown to dial down this inflammatory response, Melamede explained.

Another difference between tobacco and marijuana smoking, he said, has to do with cells that line the respiratory tract. While these cells have receptors that act as docks for nicotine, similar receptors for THC and other cannabinoids have not been found.

Nicotine, Melamede said, appears to keep these cells from committing "suicide" when they are genetically damaged, by smoking, for instance. When such cells do not kill themselves off, they are free to progress into tumors.

THC, however, does not appear to act this way in the respiratory tract -- though, in the brain, where there are cannabinoid receptors, it may have the beneficial effect of protecting cells from death when they are damaged from an injury or stroke, according to Melamede.

All of this, he said, fits in with population studies that have failed to link marijuana smoking with a higher risk of lung cancer -- though there is evidence that pot users have more respiratory problems, such as chronic cough and frequent respiratory infections.

If marijuana does not promote lung cancer, that could factor into the ongoing debate over so-called medical marijuana. Melamede said he believes "marijuana has loads of medicinal value," for everything from multiple sclerosis, to the chronic pain of arthritis, to nausea caused by cancer treatment.

U.S. government officials, however, maintain that the evidence for medical marijuana is not there. Ten states allow people to use marijuana with a doctor's prescription, but the Supreme Court has ruled that federal law trumps state law.

SOURCE: Harm Reduction Journal, October 18, 2005.

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SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051026/hl_nm/pot_cancer_dc

"Had my fill,Of the white lies,By the bad guys,I've been getting high,I'm still the same guy!

We still asking why,We shouldn't be getting high!The Grass DVD,Says even they don't know why!

"It's a Gaslight!"

"It's a Gaslight!"

It's gotta be wrong,When it never feels right!

"It's a Gaslight!"

"It's a Gaslight!"

You can't tell me,I'm wrong,Unless you tell me,You're right!

I don't wanna fight,That ain't the point of this song,But if you now know why,Please, tell me what's wrong!

Your world is made of people lying to you and people trying to help you.

So: who do you trust?

(...)

A criminal record indicates a history of criminal behavior, and thus is a measure of how trustworthy a criminal may be.

If the crimes are several years old and they've since spent years behaving well, some clemency is in order. If the crimes have been ongoing for several years culminating in a recent arrest and review, then perhaps a stiffer sentence is in order.

And if the crimes continue today?

Right now, as we seek?

(...)

WMD's. Katrina. Guantanamo. Bird-flu.

Don't. Trust. Them. Ever. Again.

Fahrenheit 9/11 showed all of us they ALL lied.

Downing Street Memo's too.

Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

(...)

They ALL lied.

This ain't just about The Bushitler Administration.

That's too easy. Don't be a punk.

It's about all the trusted sources of information that didn't tell us the truth.

It's about all the trusted sources of information that can't be trusted.

(...)

A friend is a high-school teacher, and she mentioned the media had overblown the issue of violence in schools and helped create authoritarian policies that are only leading to problem-kids becoming long-term societal problems through suspensions, drop-outs, and ventures into criminality. Racism and stereotypes are now more frequently indulged by staff and students as legitimate means of profiling, and the heightened tension as a result of Government Overlords mandating draconian measures is making students nervous irritable depressing wrecks.

Again, and I'm quoting from the above:

"...she mentioned that the media had overblown the issue..."

I said because you know your "industry" and how the media is spinning it in the worst-possible fashion to achieve the worst-possible results, you can clearly see the disgusting lies and their real practical impact on your environment, and how they took a fairly clear and balanced picture and warped it for popular consumption.

So, why do you then trust them to tell the "truth" about other "issues"?

Why do you believe they are telling the "truth" about other "industries"?

What makes you think there aren't people exactly like you tearing their hair out in every other sector of society that's being sodomized for ratings and sold as far more screwed up than they are with no empathizing context?

Where do they get the audacity to justify hyberbole as "news" when it is not leading to a better world and their sins of omission are making us all feel weaker?

What makes them think we wouldn't "buy" news that makes us feel better?

Why don't we?

(...)

"Qui bono?" is latin for "Who profits?"

As long as Bill O'Reilly is making $7mm a year for Fox News, he's going to do exactly what they want in warping the reality his viewers understand.

But, he's just a scapegoat. Don't be a punk.

He's the extreme that makes the rest of us feel comfortable with our local nightly newscasts. It's like we know he beats the hell out of his wife and kids, while at least our local anchor only beats his dog and black kids.

There. That's not so bad.

After all, as long as there's someone worse then obviously we're safely in the "middle" of popular opinion, just catching enough poison to work on us slowly, just watching the headlines that made deadlines designed to quickly brand us with their stamp of approval:

"THIS IS THE WORLD!"

No it's not.

It's a thin-gruel of half-knowledge that makes you choke on your tears.

Go ahead, try to explain it.

You've got a half-dozen Talking Points to work with per issue.

That's it.

Hurricanes?

Gas prices?

Go on...

I dare you to explain what's happening when for last 30 years a huge increase in the price of Gas has deliberately foreshadowed a recession to structurally weaken society and fracture happily co-existing cultural groups into selfish tribalism. And how Gas companies are making record profits. And how nobody else in the world has been affected by Gas prices like this. And how the Gas supply-chain has never been properly explained to identify the problem and exactly what is causing the spikes.

And exactly how many good people are screwed by this?

Isn't that a good metric for deciding what's news?

The more people affected the more important a story is?

And how badly they're affected?

And how to fix it?

Can't we judge "news" based on the "quality" of what we are seeing, hearing, or reading, as opposed to having absolute faith in the "source"?

Which one makes you feel better?

Makes you feel like you "know" what's going on?

Is that a bad thing?

Is the "news" supposed to make you feel "bad"?

Does that then make it "real news"?

Doesn't that friggin' "suck"?

(...)

A random sampling of apocrypha below, "sensationalism" is something we expect but somehow never see.

Look for it, and for the lies in how they are telling a story vs. what's actually in it, the few "facts" in the story can easily be interpreted differently.

Here...

Just some shit buried in a Reuters article via Yahoo! News...

"The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed or forced the destruction of tens of millions of birds and infected more than 100 people, killing at least 60 in four Asian nations since late 2003."

So, "60 people" in four Asian nations have been killed since 2003, and we're supposed freak-out?

Weren't 60 people killed yesterday by something else?

If this is so "viral", then how come in nearly 3 years in filthy Asian chicken-chop-shops only 100 people got infected and 60 people died?

Why did the U.S. Government put the 1914 Spanish Flu virus back together just in time to say it's almost exactly like a new plague about to kill us all?

Why should we should now agree to martial law and order billions of dollars worth of Rumsfeld-owned vaccines that only help the marginalized virus mutate into something worse and weaken our immunity for everything else?

"Bird-flu".

"Fuck-u."

(...)

This shit's getting old to me...

But hey, shit's real, and getting shit-on is worse...

(...)

BONUS: Numbers don't lie, people do...

Yahoo! News

Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Falls

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer 40 minutes ago

NEW YORK - The outlook for the holiday shopping season darkened Tuesday as the latest consumer confidence reading showed Americans even more pessimistic about the economy during October. Hurricanes, surging gasoline prices and worries about the job market took a further toll on consumer psyches.

A separate report on home sales during September also pointed to consumers' growing uneasiness.

The Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 85 in October, the lowest level since October 2003 and down from September's revised reading of 87.5, which had been the sharpest drop in 15 years. Analysts expected an October reading of 88 for the index, which is compiled from a survey of U.S. households.

"Much of the decline in confidence over the past two months can be attributed to the recent hurricanes, pump shock and a weakening labor market," said Lynn Franco, director of the private research group's Consumer Research Center in a statement.

She said the "degree of pessimism, in conjunction with the anticipation of much higher home heating bills this winter, may take some cheer out of the upcoming holiday season."

The decline in confidence helped send the Dow Jones industrial average down 15.37, or 0.15 percent, to 10,369.63 in morning trading.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors said sales of previously owned homes were unchanged in September. The Realtors said sales would have fallen without an increase in demand among people left homeless by Hurricane Katrina.

The nation's retailers are already preparing for a difficult season. Although gasoline prices have slipped back from recent weeks, they still are quite high, and home heating costs are expected to soar this fall and winter, forcing many consumers to budget carefully for the holidays.

"The unexpected decline means optismism is under more pressure than we thought," said Patrick Fearon, senior economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. Fearon believes all the political uncertainty is also weighing on consumers' confidence.

"There is certainly more going on than just hurricanes and a resulting spike in gasoline prices," said Fearon. He noted President Bush's drop in approval ratings, political unrest in the Middle East and concerns about the Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers "could weigh on people's attitudes."

One component of the Conference Board report, which examines consumers' views of the current economic situation, fell to 108.2 from 110.4 last month. The Expectations Index, which measures consumers' outlook over the next six months, fell to 69.5 from 72.3.

Consumers' assessment of the current employment market was somewhat bleaker than in September. The number of consumers saying jobs are "hard to get" rose to 25.3 percent from 25.0 percent, while the number saying jobs are "plentiful" was virtually unchanged at 20.8 percent.

The outlook for the labor market also worsened. The number of consumers expecting more jobs to become available in the coming months fell to 12.2 percent from 14.0 percent, while those expecting fewer jobs eased to 23.7 percent from 24.8 percent in September. The proportion of consumers anticipating their incomes to rise in the months ahead fell to 16.8 percent from 18.1 percent last month.

The Conference Board index is derived from responses received through Oct. 18 to a survey mailed to 5,000 households in a consumer research panel. The figure released Tuesday include responses from at least 2,500 households.

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SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051025/ap_on_bi_ge/economy

[Ed note: a nice short link too, perfect to pass-on and piss-off friends...]

(...)

BONUS: "I believe that torture is the future, TV-teach us well, and let us slave-away..."

Infowars.com

General in charge of Abu Ghraib: Torture still going on, Iraq just the beginning

General says she was deliberately kept out of the loop and scapegoated to protect higher uppers

Prisonplanet.com | October 25 2005

The General commanding troops in Iraq whose career was ruined in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, Janis Karpinski, appeared on the Alex Jones Show yesterday and made some amazing revelations.

Prisonplanet.tv subscribers can hear the entire interview here.

Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski will be reduced to the rank of colonel as a result of an Army Inspector General investigation into a scandal that tarnished the United States' reputation abroad and set in motion a string of high-level inquiries.

Karpinski was the only general punished in the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Karpinski had previously admitted that rather than being an isolated incident under her command, the abuses were, "the result of conflicting orders and confused standards extending from the military commanders in Iraq all the way to the summit of civilian leadership in Washington."

The General described how the abuses came to pass and how she was used as the scapegoat.

"It started when we were assigned this new mission for detention operations. We were basically sold a false bill of goods, they told us that we were going to Baghdad, that we were going to receive support from the CJTF7, General Sanchez's headquarters, and from Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, that we would be working with these prison experts at the Coalition Provisional Authority to work towards restoring Iraqi Prisons to turn them back over to Iraqi control."

"To arrive in Baghdad to discover that they had just begun to identify some locations, they had a list of 121 prisons that they wanted to restore and that they wanted us to run, and I told them I didn't have nearly that number of resources, I could run about fifteen, we settled on seventeen and they were responsible for providing the funding to restore and renovate those prisons."

"That was very slow in coming, only to discover after those contractors had left, most of the contract work had been allegedly done and paid for was in fact never done. So we had MP's that were running these facilities, very very austere conditions, the prisons that were restored were done to the minimal standard. In one case the contractors put all the hinges on the inside of the doors and the prisoners took all the hinge pins out."

"Abu Ghraib was never intended to be a permanent prison or permanent detention centre, it was used as an interim facility, largely because there was real estate inside the twenty foot high retaining wall, which was the first line of defence, for us to establish temporary camps."

"If there was still a war going on, this would have been much like a prisoner of war camp. It was never an ideal location of any kind, for detention operations, let alone interrogation operations as it ultimately became."

Karpinski went on to describe how military intelligence took over and became rooted within her own reservations.

"The Military Intelligence Brigade Commander relocated to Abu Ghraib after two of his soldiers were killed in an RPG attack out at the prison facility. He was visiting one night, only intended to stay one or two nights and there was an attack and two of his soldiers were killed and shortly after that he decided to relocate inside Abu Ghraib."

"He had six interrogation teams shortly after this became about a dozen. These were military interrogation teams, soldiers who were serving as interrogators, they were following the regulations, their doctrine. We had a very small number of prisoners that needed to be interrogated, they were mostly Iraqi criminals, nonviolent crimes, looting, missing curfew, a weapon in the trunk of the car, whatever it may have been."

Of course, the official army report on Abu Ghraib said that between seventy five and ninety percent were totally innocent and just hadn't had their papers in order. The General confirmed this:

"That's correct and I believe that it remains so today because they are still doing these raids, these round ups where they will go out and target an individual, and whoever happens to be around that individual, they bring them all in. And then there is no avenue to release them, once they are tagged as security detainees, they fall into this relatively new and unsupervised category."

Karpinski went on to say that the General in charge of the military interrogations at Abu Ghraib had the authority to do whatever he wanted and was not required to report any of his findings through her.

She also stated that even though innocent detainees had been deemed of no further Intel use and were recommended to be released by their interrogators, the higher uppers read the riot act and started a pattern whereby no one was to be released and innocent people were kept locked up without trial or charges.

The General went on to speak about the direct links to leading members of the Bush Administration:

"We can trace back now, through documents that were released through court order, back to the original document, the one that Alberto Gonzales reviewed and discussed with the President of the United States, a departure from the Geneva Convention. These are not prisoners, these are terrorists and these techniques will be more effective."

"And then Secretary Rumsfeld putting his signature on a document authorizing more aggressive and harsher techniques during interrogation. That document goes over to Guantanamo Bay and over to Afghanistan, and it's used first in smaller groups and then it's used at Guantanamo Bay as a standard practice."

The General also agreed that private contractors were brought in to over see the interrogations. The orders to use torture techniques can be traced back to the criminals in Government.

"The orders came right from the top, filtered down from the secretary of defence, with the endorsement of the President, the Vice President, whatever advisors are surrounding them, filtered down through the Commanders in the field, these practices were not only endorsed, but were in use at Guantanamo bay and in locations in Afghanistan. And when General Miller visited Iraq he brought those techniques with him. And then he sent contract interrogators who had 'performed well' at Guantanamo Bay to Iraq as well."

The General agreed that in effect torture seminars were taking place as Miller would teach how to make techniques of torture more effective.

Karpinski also went on to explain how it came about that photographs and video of the torture were taken and how despite Congress having seen thousands of them, few of the persons responsible for authorizing the raping of women, the beating to death of innocent people, and the torture of minors have been brought to justice.

"They needed a group of people to scapegoat and they must have believed naïvely that they were going to take the punishment, go to jail and be quiet and that they were never going to go out and hire their own attorneys and representatives for themselves and their own cases. They certainly believed that I was going to be quiet."

General Karpinski was not even informed of charges against her until the investigation was under way and she received a late night e-mail from the Commander of the Criminal Investigation Commission. His agent on site at Abu Ghraib was the one who received the disc of pictures from the MP. So the Commanding officer of all the reopened prisons in Iraq was not informed about an ongoing criminal investigation into occurrences at the prisons.

"They kept me out of the loop on purpose" Karpinski angrily asserted.

Karpinski reiterated that it was almost inconceivable to have an operation taken over by Military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, a site in the middle of the Sunni Triangle, that was being bombarded with mortars every night. Further more the objective of military intelligence is completely different from that of a military police soldier. MP's know how to humanly treat detainees and they did so at every facility, the only breach was at Abu Ghraib under the control of the military intelligence.

The MI would even hire former federal prison guards with bad records to undertake these operations.

"The prisons experts that were hired, we were supposed to have about eighty of them down at the Coalition Provisional Authority, there was three and then one of them got fired, and these are US contractors, of course they didn't share the information about their previous positions with us." Karpinski said.

The General went on to state that she saw many instances of decision makers being worried more about the political ramifications of their decisions back in Washington than the moral ramifications. She asserted that to disagree with Donald Rumsfeld would mean instant dismissal and everyone knew this.

"There is no backbone any more that the US military is so famous for. Our leaders are now afraid. They are afraid to voice their opinions, and they are afraid to say, no you're wrong." The General said.

Furthermore, all the data before the war, and the advice of all the big think tanks, suggested that more than 300, 000 troops would be needed to succeed. Of course all of this was ignored by the crazy Neo-Cons who are so convinced by their own convictions that they will not tolerate any one else's opinions or suggestions.

Becoming emotional, the General asserted that the higher uppers have been attempting to run the war "from their lap top computers". They refused to go out and walk the ground in Baghdad that the soldiers are walking, but they had no trouble sending those under them out there WITHOUT the armored vehicles which were being used to protect their own spokesmen and their own headquarters.

"The person who stopped the orders for additional armored equipment and armored vehicles is today a FOUR STAR GENERAL, and is in the Pentagon, and is serving as the acting chief of staff of the army." Karpinski angrily commented.

"You see how it works, you play the game, you go along with whatever is being spun by the Neo-Cons or by the Pentagon and you get promoted. But the people who have the strength and the moral courage to stand up and say This is wrong, this is a lie, they are removed from their positions, they take their security clearance away and then they're out on the street."

General Karpinski went on to say that the reason talk of banning torture has come to the forefront, even though there should be no need for discussion on the topic is because it IS STILL GOING ON.

"There is overwhelming proof that torture is going on, that it has been directed and is likely continuing, even to this day. I don't want to believe it is but the statements from the people just returning from the theater give every indication that in fact it is, they still don't know where to draw the line." The General said.

On the topic of why the torture is so extreme and degrading, the General suggested that the interrogators are getting a bizarre pleasure out of it. She gave the example of using naked menstruating women to break Muslim Iraqi men.

"Who studied the Arab culture to come up with such a n idea, this is insulting to anybody." She said. "And the fact that they are using female soldiers to conduct this demonstrates what they think the likely;y role of women in the army is."

If you wrote a horror movie where the army was doing this it would be too unbelievable, yet this is happening in reality and the media has just accepted it as the norm now.

It seems clear and the General agrees that we are seeing the formation of a cold blooded torture core with Iraq as the beta test. Iraq is often referred to as a "laboratory". The test is to see how the prisoners, the soldiers and the public react to this.

"They are looking for the kind of people with this mind set, who can live with themselves whilst they are going forth with this global war on terrorism and trying to make a difference."

Request made after agency's files show it violated law and policy in a number of cases

New York Times | October 25 2005By Eric Lichtblau

WASHINGTON -- Civil rights advocates called Monday for Congress to increase its oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's surveillance of suspects in intelligence investigations, in light of newly disclosed records indicating the FBI violated the law.

But the FBI defended its record, saying it had been diligent in policing itself and in correcting lapses it considered to be largely technical and procedural.

The debate was prompted by a set of internal FBI documents made public Monday that disclosed at least a dozen violations of federal law or bureau policy from 2002 to 2004 in the handling of surveillance and investigative matters.Expanding on that data, the FBI said Monday that internal reviews identified a total of 113 violations since last year that were referred to a federal intelligence board.

In several cases, the documents showed, FBI agents extended investigations and surveillance operations for months without getting proper approval from supervisors or giving notification.

In one case documented in 2002, an unidentified target was watched for nearly two years by agents in Indianapolis without the required oversight of Justice executives, the papers say. In a separate case in 2002, the documents say, agents' 15-month delay in reporting the status of their surveillance of an unidentified person in Detroit kept Justice "from exercising its responsibility for oversight and approval."

In another case, an FBI agent still on probation gained access to banking records without getting needed approval, in violation federal privacy restrictions.While most of the cases appeared to be related to intelligence and national security investigations in field offices around the country, the FBI blacked out virtually all details about the exact nature of the investigations. The documents were obtained through a public records act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a group that lobbies for greater privacy rights and civil liberties, and were first reported on Monday in The Washington Post.

Officials at the privacy center said the documents suggested abuses of authority by the FBI under the expanded powers granted under the USA Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism law that Congress will consider extending in coming weeks. The privacy group said congressional oversight committees had never been properly informed of the possible violations, and it called on Congress to exercise greater oversight.

"These are instances of alleged abuse in domestic intelligence investigations by the FBI, and we consider the failure to report these issues to Congress to be a really serious one," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the privacy center.REAL SOURCE - http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/fbi_congress_asked_increase_oversight.htm

(...)

BONUS: A former marine and UN weapons inspector breaks down how the people in charge may soon use real weapons on us...

Former UN Weapons Inspector: Don't Rule Out Staged Government Terror

Ritter says Neo-Cons are embattled, surrounded, could resort to desperate measures to further global domination

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | October 24 2005

Former United Nations weapons inspector and Marine Scott Ritter appeared on The Alex Jones Show and stated that he wouldn't rule out the possibility of the Bush administration staging a terror attack in order to jolt a wavering foreign policy agenda back on track.

Ritter compared the atmosphere within the administration to that during the time of Watergate, where Nixon considered utilizing America's nuclear arsenal to create a devastating diversion from domestic calamity.

"Nothing this administration would do would surprise me, they're desperate right now."

"If you go back and take a look at the Nixon administration during the height of Watergate Nixon was talking about using nuclear weapons against the Soviets in the Middle East, insanity of this nature."

"When you have an irresponsible administration like the Nixon administration, like this current administration, and they start to feel embattled, surrounded, they take on a fortress like mentality where everybody becomes the enemy."

Asked if he thought a staged terror attack was possible, a scenario previously considered by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, Ritter responded,

"Yeah, you have people who have no regard for the rule of law. These aren't people who appreciate the Constitution, to them the Constitution is an impediment, it's an obstacle, it's something in the way, it's something to be avoided. They are married to an ideology of global domination, of global imperialism and they're not going to deviate from this."

Regarding the issue of imminent indictments of top Bush administration officials, Ritter stated,

"I think the President should be investigated to determine whether he's committed a crime and if a crime has been committed then the President must be held accountable, fully accountable, to the rule of law."

Ritter dispelled any potential charges of partisanship by stating, "If we're going to go after Bush then we have to go after Clinton."

"We've got to make sure that we set the record straight that this isn't about partisan bashing, Bush bashing. This is about reasserting the rule of law as set forth by the Constitution and reasserting the power of the people."

On the subject of which country will be subject to the next Neo-Con invasion, Ritter commented,

"There are elements within the Bush administration, especially Donald Rumsfeld's associates, Doug Fife, Wolfowitz and others whose long goal crossed the line of serving America and they started serving another country out there, Israel."

"This administration wants to go to Syria, wants to go to Iran. Iran has turned into a little more difficult of a proposition both diplomatically and militarily, and financially. So Iran may be pushed to the back-burner right now, doesn't mean it's going away, we should never forget that."

"We're going to go small first and I think that with Syria the feeling in the Bush administration is that this is a very easy target, it's one that would make Israel very happy if we took out this regime."

"I'm not sure it's going to be as easy as they think it's going to be."

Ritter's claims have continually been proven to be accurate even in the face of numerous establishment media and government attempts to defame his character.

Ritter is the latest of a rash of credible people both inside and outside of government to voice concerns that a staged terror attack blamed on Iran or Syria could be used as the pretext to instigate pre-planned invasions and further entrench a police state in the US.

Former CIA analyst and Bush 41 staffer Ray McGovern gave similar sentiments as well as British Member or Parliament George Galloway.

------------------------------------------

Prison Planet.tv members can listen to the entirety of this interview right now by subscribing online. Check out the great subscription benefits you will receive by becoming an exclusive member.REAL SOURCE - http://www.infowars.com/articles/terror/ritter_dont_rule_out_staged_gov_terror.htm

Monday, October 24, 2005

Back to "Work" - CONFIRMED: Bush Melting Down

"Happy or sad, This prick makes us mad, Flippin' us the finger, Just shows us he's bad,

Puppet-masters are sad, They picked a disaster, And "Four More Years!", Can't go any faster,

Military-minds wanna grind, Showin' us they ain't kind, Showin' us we all blind, To the grind on they' mind,

Gears startin' to grind, From years first to the fifth, While Plame-Gate is a gift, See them pleading The Fifth,

They move in silence- So the violence- Is hidden from us all, Judge Roberts got the call, Hope Harriet's gonna fall,

We feelin' small in the face, Of them changing this place, Evil's got a screwface, Now he's fakin' distaste,

The money-masters matter, The rest is just idle-chatter, He's just a designated batter, Can't hit the curves when they matter,

So we swerve when it matters, Just stay outta their way, Water's getting worse, So bottled-water we say,

We gettin' throttled this way, Choke-chains can't last, Plastic's just made of oil: Check the price, of gas,

Check the advice of the past, Catch it repeated right here, Chase dem "Crazy Baldheads", Like Bob is still near,

Have no fear for the lies, Have faith in open-eyes, Forget your "Eyes on the Prize",And the next MLK dies,

See the KKK-eyes, Katrina's killers still live, Now Wilma's comin' next, So how can we forgive?

So how can we forget? For all our own sakes? This is just survival now: We gotta do what it takes..."

Bush flashes the bird, something aides say he does often and has been doing since his days as governor of Texas.

Infowars.com

CONFIRMED: Bush Melting Down

Bushies feeling the boss' wrath

NY DAILY NEWS | October 24th, 2005BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK

RELATED:

Bush's Obscene Tirades Rattle White House Aides

Is Bush Out of Control?

WASHINGTON - Facing the darkest days of his presidency, President Bush is frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter, his associates say.

With a seemingly uncontrollable insurgency in Iraq, the White House is bracing for the political fallout from a grim milestone that could come any day: the combat death of the 2,000th American G.I.

Last week alone, 23 military personnel were killed in Iraq, and five were wounded yesterday in a relentless series of attacks across the country.

This week could also bring a special prosecutor's decision that could shake the foundations of the Bush government.

The President's top political guru, Karl Rove, and Vice President Cheney's right-hand man, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, are at the center of a two-year criminal probe into the leak of a CIA agent's identity. Many Bush staffers believe indictments are likely.

"He's like the lion in winter," observed a political friend of Bush. "He's frustrated.

He remains quite confident in the decisions he has made. But this is a guy who wanted to do big things in a second term. Given his nature, there's no way he'd be happy about the way things have gone."

Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it. Lately, however, some junior staffers have also faced the boss' wrath.

"This is not some manager at McDonald's chewing out the help," said a source with close ties to the White House when told about these outbursts. "This is the President of the United States, and it's not a pleasant sight.

Bush flashes the bird, something aides say he does often and has been doing since his days as governor of Texas.

The specter of losing Rove, his only truly irreplaceable assistant, lies at the heart of Bush's distress. But a string of political reversals, including growing opposition to the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina's aftermath and Harriet Miers' bungled Supreme Court nomination, have also exacted a personal toll.

Presidential advisers and friends say Bush is a mass of contradictions: cheerful and serene, peevish and melancholy, occasionally lapsing into what he once derided as the "blame game." They describe him as beset but unbowed, convinced that history will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency even if they damage him and his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

At the same time, these sources say Bush, who has a long history of keeping staffers in their place, has lashed out at aides as his political woes have mounted.

"The President is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about," said one Bush insider. "Andy [Card, the chief of staff] gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share."

The vice president remains Bush's most trusted political confidant. Even so, the Daily News has learned Bush has told associates Cheney was overly involved in intelligence issues in the runup to the Iraq war that have been seized on by Bush critics.

Bush is so dismayed that "the only person escaping blame is the President himself," said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration "illogical."

A second senior Bush loyalist disagreed, saying Bush knows "some of these things are self-inflicted," like the Miers nomination, where Bush jettisoned contrary advice from his advisers and appointed his longtime personal lawyer.

"He must know that the way he did that, relying on his own judgment and instinct, was not good," another key adviser said.

Despite the turmoil, Bush is determined to soldier on, already preparing for two major overseas trips in November and helping shape next year's legislative agenda.

"I've got a job to do," he told reporters last week. "The American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to."

You can't make any real money without a boogeyman, and the new "Bird Flu" hoax is the latest scam used to generate profits for pharmaceutical company insiders.

"Finally, the pieces of the puzzle start to add up," writes Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of the "Total Health Program." "President Bush sought to instill panic in this country by telling us a minimum of 200,000 people will die from the avian flu pandemic but it could be as bad as 2 million deaths in this country alone."http://mercola.com/blog/2005/oct/19/rumsfeld_to_profit_from_avian_flu_hoax

"This hoax is then used to justify the immediate purchase of 80 million doses of Tamiflu, a worthless drug that in no way shape or form treats the avian flu, but only decreases the amount of days one is sick and can actually contribute to the virus having more lethal mutations," Mercola continues.

"So the U.S. placed an order for 20 million doses of this worthless drug at a price of $100 per dose. That comes to a staggering $2 billion.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former chairman of Gilead, the manufacturer of Tamiflu, will also make big profits, since he is a major shareholder.

Another Bilderberger regular is Lodewijk J.R. de Vink, who sits on the board of Hoffman-La Roche, Gilead's partner.http://www.roche.com/home/company/com_gov/com_gov_dir/com_gov_dir_vink.htm

In other words, the "Bird Flu" scam will generate outrageous profits for globalist-insiders like Shultz, Rumsfeld, Davignon, and de Vink.

And where did Tamiflu come from?

According to the Gilead website, "In September 1996, Gilead and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. entered into a collaborative agreement to develop and market therapies that treat and prevent viral influenza. Under the agreement, Roche received exclusive worldwide rights to Gilead's proprietary influenza neuraminidase inhibitors, including orally administered Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate), formerly known as GS 4104. As part of this collaboration, Gilead and Roche jointly conducted clinical development of oseltamivir phosphate, with Roche funding all research and development costs.Roche has worldwide commercial rights to Tamiflu, and Gilead receives payments from Roche for the successful completion of program milestones and royalties on product sales." (http://www.gilead.com/wt/sec/partners)

It should be remembered that Rumsfeld loves pharmaceutical scams. It was after all Rumsfeld, as chairman of G.D. Searle, who pressured the FDA to get Aspartame approved.

The FDA blocked its approval for ten years before Rumsfeld twisted arms and broke who knows how many legs at the FDA. Now Aspartame, an artificial sweetener as ubiquitous as it is toxic, continues to poison America and the world.

"And to the G's, you can feel my pain, 'til a mothafucka gets born, again..."

_________________

...

Black Krishna Brand

Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/

Music - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/blackkrishna.htm

...

ATTACHMENT - V021 - She's Not Happy.WAV

377K Download - 1:36

"She ain't happy, when I come over...

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She ain't happy, when I come over...

So I swear...

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She ain't happy, when I come over...

She ain't happy, when I leave...

She ain't happy, when I come over...

So I swear...

I must leave...

Oh, she ain't happy...

She ain't, happy...

She ain't, happy...

With me..."

(...)

Sisyphus (SIS-i-fus)

Sinner condemned in Tartarus to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill then watching it roll back down again. Sisyphus was founder and king of Corinth, or Ephyra as it was called in those days. He was notorious as the most cunning knave on earth. His greatest triumph came at the end of his life, when the god Hades came to claim him personally for the kingdom of the dead. Hades had brought along a pair of handcuffs, a comparative novelty, and Sisyphus expressed such an interest that Hades was persuaded to demonstrate their use - on himself.

And so it came about that the high lord of the Underworld was kept locked up in a closet at Sisyphus's house for many a day, a circumstance which put the great chain of being seriously out of whack. Nobody could die. A soldier might be chopped to bits in battle and still show up at camp for dinner. Finally Hades was released and Sisyphus was ordered summarily to report to the Underworld for his eternal assignment. But the wily one had another trick up his sleeve.

He simply told his wife not to bury him and then complained to Persephone, Queen of the Dead, that he had not been accorded the proper funeral honors. What's more, as an unburied corpse he had no business on the far side of the river Styx at all - his wife hadn't placed a coin under his tongue to secure passage with Charon the ferryman. Surely her highness could see that Sisyphus must be given leave to journey back topside and put things right.

Kindly Persephone assented, and Sisyphus made his way back to the sunshine, where he promptly forgot all about funerals and such drab affairs and lived on in dissipation for another good stretch of time. But even this paramount trickster could only postpone the inevitable. Eventually he was hauled down to Hades, where his indiscretions caught up with him. For a crime against the gods - the specifics of which are variously reported - he was condemned to an eternity at hard labor. And frustrating labor at that. For his assignment was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. Only every time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil, attained the summit, the darn thing rolled back down again.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

To quote the Great Fred Flintstone: "WILMAAA!!!"

I had a discussion with a friend today on what was "real", and she said that while my (only hinted-at - don't need her world made of Jell-O since I like visiting world's that are not) theories may be valuable, I couldn't deny the images we were seeing on TV. She also said that she just couldn't take the suffering and death and destruction, and thus has to tune out nearly everything but the headlines.

I countered with a yes... but.

Stepping back for a minute, I made the simple point that if something you do is making you feel "worse", then perhaps you should stop it. If that's the "news", then perhaps you should stop watching it, especially when there are other options for information besides Magic 8-Ball's and sheep entrails.

Stepping up for a minute, I also suggested that ALL information is based on editorial decisions, from what we wear to what we say, and that obviously includes the news. The images we see are meant to make us feel terrible and powerless, and don't include a tonne of context.

Though we've seen a half-dozen hurricanes recently, I don't know a damn thing about them - and neither does anybody I know despite their authoritative repetition of the banalities of evil that pass for analysis on TV. Experts are invited on shows to merely say that "it's coming and may hit here", and discuss the basics such as the speed of the winds and category of hurricane and how we should do what the government tells us.

There is no push for "science", no reason for why this is happening now, and no reason they can't be predicted or stopped in some fashion.

I mean, we (may have - oops, that there may be pushing it) put a man on the moon, and yet, we can't send a big ol' balloon full of hot air (like Rush Limbaugh) up to chill out a cloud or two?

Okay, I'm just theorizing; really, I'm not saying I have any answers, but I'm damn sure somebody who knows a thing or two-thousand about this does.

So, before you tell me I'm crazy, tell me you're right.

No, "really" right.

Not "we gotta kill 'em over there before they kill us over here" right.

There's a huge difference.

(...)

In fact, the best source of "news" I've ever seen has someone who's been professionally contradicting the official garbage for a hell of a long time now, so why not give him a chance to explain for all our sakes...

Buried under the constantly updated reports of Hurricane Wilma, its increasing or decreasing strength and where it will make landfall, is the reality that the government already has developed technology enabling control and reduction of hurricanes.

However, unsurprisingly they have no shown no willingness to use it to save lives or businesses as we come to the conclusion of what many are calling the most unprecedented hurricane season in history.

Former Naval physicist Ben Livingston briefed President Lyndon B. Johnson on hurricane control technology 40 years ago and continues to try to educate the public on its potential effectiveness today.

During a recent appearance on the Alex Jones Show, Livingston outlined the basics of the technology.

"A hurricane is made up of energy sails and each of those sails adds to the ferocity of it. It was proven in 1974 by an international project that these energy sails exist and that they are the reason that hurricanes can develop and grow move and cause damages. So there's no reason to attack the hurricane in total but just to fly in to the right front quadrant primarily relative to the direction the storm is moving in and seed those energy sails that are converging and making the rain and wind velocity increase in the front part of a hurricane." Livingston asserted.

He went on to explain exactly how to minimize and control the hurricane:

"We would be trying to destroy or at least grossly reduce the velocity in these individual energy sails by seeding the clouds with silver iodide in the top part of the cloud... and those tops would then have so many small droplets in them that the prevailing wind just blows them away and so an energy sail would be neutralized until it can regroup which may be several hours later."

The seeding process may sound complicated but it is not at all. There would be no need for more than two small aircraft at a time to safely fly upwards into the hurricane.

"We're carrying more cloud seeding material on one airplane now, over 800% more on each plane than we had during Project Storm Fury" (The project set up by the US Government to discover how to control hurricanes in the 60s). Livingston added.

Alex put the question to Livingston, if it is so simple to do and the government knows how to do it and has been doing it since the 60s then why did they not attempt to minimize hurricane Katrina?

"This is a long story with a deep history. Back in the mid 50s, 1954 or so, the government allotted the first amount of money for weather modification and weather control practices to the US weather Bureau to the tune of about 30 million dollars." Livingston said.

"Their charge was to employ the most brilliant scientists around the world, and meteorologists and physicists, to work out a concept for reducing damages from hurricanes. What brought that on was that we had three tremendous hurricanes in 1953 and '54 that affected the twelve northeastern states... Basically The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was formed to take that responsibility." He went on to say.

With Florida residents now being urged to evacuate and weather experts still unsure of Hurricane Wilma's exact path, how long will it be before public interest peaks in weather control technologies and real pressure is applied to force the government into using them?

We won't be holding our breath.

The deliberate sabotage of relief efforts during Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent exploitation of chaos used to enact police state measures and gun confiscations reminds us of the fact that, despite having tools at its disposal to make the situation better, government always steps in to turn a bad dream into a nightmare.